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Hi there,
To sum it up, I'm a big fan of modern aircrafts, and the beginning of the so-called "stealth" and 5th generation aircrafts and uav is thrilling. However it's quite hard to obtain good and reliable informations about them, for obvious reasons. I found this article, from an Australian think tank, talking about the Russian Su-57 in a favorable way :

https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2012-03.html#mozTocId128159

I know some people, mainly American from what I saw, that despise it, even calling it a 4++ or a 5- gen fighter. And I saw some other people, mainly eastern / asian people, telling how wonderful it was. The truth being the middle ground between both. This article is from a Western think tank from a member of the Western 5-eyes, so it's quite refreshing to see them speaking about it in such a favorable manner. But the big question is : how reliable is this think tank ? I've done some research and it appears they strongly oppose the F35 lightning II. Ok, there is that. But they doesn't mean they hâte everything West, as they absolutely adore the F22 at the same time for example. Have you ever heard about this think tank ? What do you think about their analysis ?

TL;DR for the article : the Su-57 present no fundamental obstacle to being a Very Low Observable system (especially when considering the front part of the aircraft, the one supposed to face the enemy, quite fitting!), and has a bright future ahead if the Russian keep working on it (with Ram coating for example) in addition to formidable advantages like its agility and combat persistency.

What's this got to do with Geek Media?

 Azreal13 wrote:
What's this got to do with Geek Media?

Absolutely nothing, I just messed up !

Now I'm no expert, however I think it's pretty important to realise that the Russians only have 11 of these and its been in development for over two decades.

In the time it took for the Russians to build their "5th Gen" fighter, the US had the entire service life of the F22 and has started the service of the F35 for itself and NATO allies.

It's also absolutely massive and I'm not sure how that works with "stealth".

 godardc wrote:
TL;DR for the article : the Su-57 present no fundamental obstacle to being a Very Low Observable system (especially when considering the front part of the aircraft, the one supposed to face the enemy, quite fitting!), and has a bright future ahead if the Russian keep working on it (with Ram coating for example) in addition to formidable advantages like its agility and combat persistency.

Right now it's all guesswork, and even within "expert" communities there is wide (and often angry) disagreement over how all of these things would match up "for real."

I absolutely am not one of those arguing that Russian = junk, and given the diffusion of technology (and industrial espionage), I'm not sure how any of these things will stack up.

What I think is more important is quality of training, morale, accountability among commanders.

Russian aircraft designs are excellent. They can, or at least could, design amazing machines.

The reason Russian stuff is crap is not because of the designs, but because the Russians can't build enough/maintain anything if their lives depended on it. Corruption ensure that everything rots from the inside. Doesn't matter if you make an amazing machine if the vatniks sell the shiny bits for vodka money and you're too poor to build more than a dozen of them.

The Russian aerospace sector is one of the great tragedies of history. A lot of truly brilliant minds who made some amazing stuff considering the political conditions they worked under, and only for their creations to be put in the hands of people who have lived in such abject squalor for so long that the only way to survive is to steal everything not nailed down(and most of what is) and sell it for scrap.

If only Lockheed Martin could have stolen the Russian and Soviet designers and given them a place where their creations would be safe from the closest equivalent to Ork Lootas.

First off, as has already been mentioned, no-one knows the full capabilities of any 4+ gen aircraft; it’s all highly classified military secrets and we’re guessing for anything beyond the base F-16 / Su-27 models. However ther is a great quote I’ve seen floating around in a few places: “the Russians (/Soviets) are never as strong as they seem, but are never as weak as you think.”

The Su-57 would appear to be a classic example; airframe looks pretty good, the engines appear to have high performance, but will probably pair that with a short lifespan / maintenance intensive. The radar emitters will probably be very advanced, but the electronics behind them will be a kludge. And they have maybe a dozen and I bet no one gets to fly them (or with them) on a regular basis. So you end up with a somewhat capable individual aircraft with no doctrine to exploit it’s capabilities or mitigate it’s weaknesses and is essentially irrelevant against a properly integrated air force.

Gert wrote:Now I'm no expert, however I think it's pretty important to realise that the Russians only have 11 of these and its been in development for over two decades.

In the time it took for the Russians to build their "5th Gen" fighter, the US had the entire service life of the F22 and has started the service of the F35 for itself and NATO allies.

It's also absolutely massive and I'm not sure how that works with "stealth".

Absolutely size is not exactly irrelevant, but one of the least important factors. The B-1B is in the same size range as a B-52, but has a substantially (I think 100x was bandied around) lower RCS due to shaping and coatings.

Grey Templar wrote:Russian aircraft designs are excellent. They can, or at least could, design amazing machines.

The reason Russian stuff is crap is not because of the designs, but because the Russians can't build enough/maintain anything if their lives depended on it. Corruption ensure that everything rots from the inside. Doesn't matter if you make an amazing machine if the vatniks sell the shiny bits for vodka money and you're too poor to build more than a dozen of them.

The Russian aerospace sector is one of the great tragedies of history. A lot of truly brilliant minds who made some amazing stuff considering the political conditions they worked under, and only for their creations to be put in the hands of people who have lived in such abject squalor for so long that the only way to survive is to steal everything not nailed down(and most of what is) and sell it for scrap.

If only Lockheed Martin could have stolen the Russian and Soviet designers and given them a place where their creations would be safe from the closest equivalent to Ork Lootas.

This. Plus lack of flight hours.

If there's one thing the current war has shown us, it's not to trust any analysis of Russian combat capabilities. The Su-57 is likely an excellent machine, as is a lot of the hardware in the Russian arsenal. The problems generally aren't with the designs themselves. It's with training, military doctrine, morale and corruption within both the military and the contractors themselves. One reason the Russians have failed to achieve air superiority in Ukraine is down to a simple lack of flight time for their pilots, as well as some fundamental issues with their training and general approach to aerial warfare. Put those same pilots in a much superior aircraft and you likely won't get much better results.

A more interesting analysis might be to investigate the likelihood of Russia being able to produce these things in significant numbers any time soon. The estimated entire inventory currently fits inside a moderately sized hangar.

Slipspace wrote:
If there's one thing the current war has shown us, it's not to trust any analysis of Russian combat capabilities. The Su-57 is likely an excellent machine, as is a lot of the hardware in the Russian arsenal. The problems generally aren't with the designs themselves. It's with training, military doctrine, morale and corruption within both the military and the contractors themselves. One reason the Russians have failed to achieve air superiority in Ukraine is down to a simple lack of flight time for their pilots, as well as some fundamental issues with their training and general approach to aerial warfare. Put those same pilots in a much superior aircraft and you likely won't get much better results.

A more interesting analysis might be to investigate the likelihood of Russia being able to produce these things in significant numbers any time soon. The estimated entire inventory currently fits inside a moderately sized hangar.

I would argue that Russia probably does have air superiority, but they certainly don't have air supremacy. However, I think that focusing on Russian deficiencies discounts Ukrainian efforts in force dispersion and aerial denial. The airspace over Ukraine is highly challenging for both sides, partly because both militaries have roots in Soviet aerial denial doctrine with legacy equipment to match.

Broadly speaking, Ukraine has adopted an approach similar to the RAF during the Battle of Britain, except with AA assets moreso than fighters. It is very difficult to wipe such a dispersed force even with well-trained pilots, unless you enjoy a huge technological advantage. Russia does not have that. It is notable that a lot of fixed Ukrainian aerial defense installations were comprehensively destroyed in the opening days of the war, which accounts for the massive air advantage Russia enjoyed intially. Mobile defences were effectively dispersed and mostly survived.

I also am no aircraft engineer but seeing that the SU57 seems to have visible screwheads in its wings and there are flying pictures through the web of SU57s with external missiles under its wings, I have my doubts regarding its stealth capacity.

And one has to consider that Western Defence industry has stealth on its "radar" since the 70s, I suspect "it's kind of stealthy from the front" is not really enough anymore

As Pyroaclhi noted, the Russians have foregone all-aspect stealth, as well as any real pretense of thermal management. This will be relatively "stealthy" from the front, but just as big of a target from below, the sides, or rear as any gen 3/4 aircraft in service. This suggests its primary role was intended to be as more of an interceptor design (which the Russians have been fond of historically) rather than a true air superiority fighter. IE - its intended primarily to serve in friendly skies/uncontested environments where the risk from air defenses is minimal to non-existent, likely in a missile-slinger role where it launches air-to-air missiles (or air-to-surface cruise missiles) from long range and then "turns and burns" to remain outside of the engagement envelope of their targets. This would explain why they haven't been deployed to the Ukraine theater despite having demonstrated combat capability in Syria.

The engines, as someone else noted, are likely to produce phenomenal amounts of thrust, but likely to have extremely poor service life and maintainability issues, as well as extreme fuel inefficiency, on top of probably being relatively heavy for their level of performance (resulting in a comparably poorer thrust:weight ratio vs western designs). Those are pretty much standard fare for Russian jet engines. This further reinforces the "interceptor" role - it won't have the legs to conduct persistent operations at long distances from its base and if there was any sort of operational planning behind its design and implementation, then they probably want to minimize flight hours and flying time in order maintain readiness levels and minimize the need for engine replacements.

In terms of maneuverability - Russian fighters have been incredibly maneuverable for decades, typically far and away exceeding the capabilities of their western counterparts... its just that they have yet to demonstrate why that might be useful outside of an airshow or why it would be worth compromising stealth capabilities to enable better maneuverability in a combat scenario. There was a school of thought that said that maneuverability would help defeat missiles by enabling Russian fighters to potentially outmaneuver them - I think at this point most if not all anti-air missiles are capable of out-turning any operable aircraft, and are certainly more than capable of exceeding the G-limits of any pilot, so thats probably a non-factor. Theres also the school of thought that Russian fighters are better dogfighters owing to superior maneuverability. Sure, I could buy that, but the thing is that dogfights aren't very common anymore and the SU-57s likely opponents have better all-aspect (or at least multi-aspect - the F-35s rear RCS leaves something to be desired) stealth which probably counters a lot of the maneuverability advantage that the SU-57 might have on the attack, while the SU-57 is itself at greater risk from the sides or rear on defense.

But thats fine, because Russia has usually been thought of (at least through the cold war, since the fall of the soviet union they've failed to maintain their competitive edge and any advantage they may have had has been eroded, if not fully erased) as having superior-performing air-to-air missiles (especially in the BVR category), at least on paper - the sensor fusion and capabilities needed to exploit the performance capabilities of the missiles aren't really there, so in practice its kind of a wash. In an ideal world it doesn't *need* to be a good dogfighter, because it ideally will never need to dogfight - which again reinforces the interceptor role (or the idea that Russian engineers and industry are incapable of building all-aspect stealth and so are trying to make up for those shortcoming by maxizing capability elsewhere).

Avionics/sensor wise, the SU-57 uses the first airborne AESA system in Russian service (although theres a lot to suggest the system isn't fully functional/operational yet) - they are way behind in radar tech and are suffering from industrial and technological deficiencies that are limiting their ability to develop modern radars as capable as foreign counterparts. Nobody really knows how well the Byelka system on the SU-57 will perform, but based on the performance on their most recent non-AESA systems its a safe bet that the answer is "not well". The most modern Russian avionics and sensors tech has consistently underperformed even 10-20+ year old western equivalents in comparative performance testing during acquisition fly-offs by foreign air forces since the early/mid 2000s. Yes, in most cases this is a comparison of export variants which have downrated performance compared to domestic tech, but if the export variants are consistently underperforming, the domestic stuff probably is consistently underperforming too. Russia does have advanced electronic warfare capabilities, seemingly exceeding the capabilities of NATO and US systems in many respects, though the majority of these systems are large, heavy, ground-based platforms. I'm not sure that russias aerial EW capabilities are really comparable, and their ECM/ECCM capabilities (especially in the aerial arena) seem to have otherwise lagged behind a bit. Navigation wise, GLONASS is inferior to GPS (and in fact inferior to every other global navigation system in existence - GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou all have significantly greater degrees of both accuracy and precision than GLONASS, as well as being harder to jam or disrupt and having significantly lower failure rates/higher system up-time).

And like others noted, its all virtually meaningless anyway because Russia lacks the "infrastructure" to support effective use of the platform and its systems, i.e. the doctrine, training, maintenance and quality standards, operational integration, etc.

 Gert wrote:
Now I'm no expert, however I think it's pretty important to realise that the Russians only have 11 of these and its been in development for over two decades.

In the time it took for the Russians to build their "5th Gen" fighter, the US had the entire service life of the F22 and has started the service of the F35 for itself and NATO allies.

It's also absolutely massive and I'm not sure how that works with "stealth".

It's way smaller than the B-2. Being large in and of itself does not negate stealth.

Make it trickier, sure. But not impossible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I also am no aircraft engineer but seeing that the SU57 seems to have visible screwheads in its wings and there are flying pictures through the web of SU57s with external missiles under its wings, I have my doubts regarding its stealth capacity.

And one has to consider that Western Defence industry has stealth on its "radar" since the 70s, I suspect "it's kind of stealthy from the front" is not really enough anymore

Depends on what you mean by 'enough'.

Against a Raptor with AWACs support? Nope.

Against a 4th generation fighter, of which there are still hundreds or even thousands in service? It'll do.

EDIT: On the issue of the irrelevance of maneuverability.... I'd be hesitant to say it's TOTALLY irrelevant. LESS relevant, sure, but not TOTALLTY irrelevant. The age of the dogfight may largely be past, but it can still happen. And even without dogfights, there are benefits to being able to pull the nose around quickly and get into firing position faster, especially when being vectored around by AWACs control. If you can zip in on a flanking reciprocal course and quickly turn to bring your missiles to bear on their less-stealthy flanks and rear, that reduces your exposure to detection by THEIR radar and control systems. And, of course, maneuverability is nice to have in air-to-ground missions where someone might be shooting at you with a light cannon...

I believe that if the war in Ukraine has shown us something, it's not that the industrial capacity of Russia staggered or is lacking, but more that the power became complacent and lazy after some easy victories (Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2015), and let the country rot. Now that they have been hurt badly and woke up, they put the combined industrial might of the USA and Europe to shame just in shell production, for example. When there is a will, there is a way ! So I have no doubts they will build the small hundred of Su-57 planned in time (but it will still not be enough to really matter if they don't order more , I agree). They already announced an increase in production and opened it to others countries.
The Su-57 is to receive new, stealthier engines in the coming time, some have already been equipped with. Let's not forget that it needs time to mature, just like the F35 (I still remember the not so long ago time where it was the most expensive non combat capable fighter on Earth haha).

I believe the doctrine for the Russian air force is to operate mainly in friendly skies, protected by their strong air defense, but correct me if I'm wrong. That would explain the bad rear stealth ?
But it does seem that the Russian intentionally decided not to make it fully stealth (look at that irst on the front !!!). Was it because of lack of knowhow it a deliberate choice ("we don't need an F22 !") ?
I guess we'll know if one day they produce their vaunted Pak DA stealth bomber (spoiler alert: I don't believe we'll see it soon !).

 Gert wrote:
Now I'm no expert, however I think it's pretty important to realise that the Russians only have 11 of these and its been in development for over two decades.

In the time it took for the Russians to build their "5th Gen" fighter, the US had the entire service life of the F22 and has started the service of the F35 for itself and NATO allies.

It's also absolutely massive and I'm not sure how that works with "stealth".

Yeah, but I wasn't comparing it to the USA, nobody can especially in Air Force, that's kinda their thing. Look at the European countries, supposed to be wealthy and technologically advanced : they have yet to develop their own, let alone produce it ! I mean, c'mon, have you heard about the Eurodrone ? They are on the verge of starting production of their first MALE drone ... in 2024. for how long have the States been using reapers and predators ?^^ I was more wondering in a vacuum and about the think tank. But I agree that the Russian are late for a "superpower" and that their production rate is ridiculous compared to the Chinese for example, that have their own 5 gen fighter (that is even more mysterious)

 Vulcan wrote:


EDIT: On the issue of the irrelevance of maneuverability.... I'd be hesitant to say it's TOTALLY irrelevant. LESS relevant, sure, but not TOTALLTY irrelevant. The age of the dogfight may largely be past, but it can still happen. And even without dogfights, there are benefits to being able to pull the nose around quickly and get into firing position faster, especially when being vectored around by AWACs control. If you can zip in on a flanking reciprocal course and quickly turn to bring your missiles to bear on their less-stealthy flanks and rear, that reduces your exposure to detection by THEIR radar and control systems. And, of course, maneuverability is nice to have in air-to-ground missions where someone might be shooting at you with a light cannon...

I typed out a much longer response which was eaten when I tried to post it and turned out to no longer be longed in, so I'll just sum it up and say that neither scenario is really realistic.

The SU-57 was designed with much the same philosophy as the F-35, provide "close" air support from stand-off distances. The SU-57 should never be in an environment where it needs to use its superior maneuverability to dodge SPAAG/AA cannon fire - especially with the increasing obscurity of AA gun systems - though maybe they will get second life as the system of choice for dealing with low-end drone threats (even still, it seems the preference is to build smaller cheaper missiles). Then again, the lack of anything discernable as a Russian SEAD/DEAD doctrine may put the SU-57 in harms way, especially with the Russian tendency to prioritize airpower in support of air-to-surface strike missions over air-to-air engagement, but I would expect the SU-57 to put in a bad position where it needs to survive many many many missiles well before a light cannon ever can become a threat to it.

As for AWACS - Russian doctrine is very different to that of the West. The scenario you describe is unlikely to ever materialize. Russias AWACS fleet is tiny, they have a literal handful of operation AWACS assets, which themselves are considerably less capable in almost every measure than something like an E-3 Sentry. Their ability to vector an SU-57 package onto a hostile near-peer threat is basically nonexistent on a technological basis, even before you get into the doctrinal differences. Russian pilots do not regularly train or practice operating under AWACS control, and Russian AWACS assets aren't really much used for "battle management" or "control" so much as they are "radar pickets" - i.e. detect, identify, and report contacts rather than guide Russian assets into contact with them. Basically the current biggest identified use case for Russian AWACS in the Ukrainian conflict is actually as a targeting platform for long range air-to-surface cruise missiles, as the launch platforms themselves are not capable of designating their own targets that far from enemy territory. What little battle management that is practiced by the Russian air force is predominantly handled from ground stations within Russia itself, which necessarily limits the concept of battle management to defensive operations over Russian skies and *maybe* limited offensive operations along the Russian frontier. Russian pilots are overwhelmingly trained to conduct maneuvers against pre-planned and pre-briefed targets or in pre-planned AOs/Kill Boxes, etc. They aren't really capable of dynamic, flexible, and responsive sorties under control of battle managers over a wider area. To that end, the Russian air force is basically institutionally incapable of conducting large complex integrated strategic air operations in a manner where this would even be a realistic possibility. The vast majority of observed combat sorties are being handled by single or two-ship flights, and more rarely four-ship flights. Over the past 20-30+ years the vast majority of combat training sorties by the Russian air force have likewise been single or two-ship formations, with the occasional four ship formation. Notably, outside of a handful of set piece "training demonstrations", the largest known training sorties of dissimilar aircraft (which are themselves rare events) were two-pair formations (i.e. two Sukhois + two MiGs or whatever). Contrast this with the US and NATO who regularly conduct training exercises with dozens or even hundreds of aircraft drawn from multiple services, nations, designs, configurations, and classifications. Its just two entirely dissimilar ways of thinking about and executing air missions, let alone the *scale* at which those missions are done. To conduct the sort of intercept you describe requires an operational or strategic concept of maneuverability that the Russian Air Force does not possess more than it does the tactical maneuverability offered by the airframe.

 godardc wrote:
I believe that if the war in Ukraine has shown us something, it's not that the industrial capacity of Russia staggered or is lacking, but more that the power became complacent and lazy after some easy victories (Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2015), and let the country rot. Now that they have been hurt badly and woke up, they put the combined industrial might of the USA and Europe to shame just in shell production, for example. When there is a will, there is a way ! So I have no doubts they will build the small hundred of Su-57 planned in time (but it will still not be enough to really matter if they don't order more , I agree). They already announced an increase in production and opened it to others countries.

Dunno about that. We haven't actually seen proof that Russian shell output has increased to the degree stated. The fact that they are relying on low-quality imported North Korean shells with dud rates as high as 60% to maintain their levels of activity would seem to indicate that they have not, in fact, increased their industrial output anywhere near the degree claimed. Even still - Russia needs to produce that many shells because its own shells have had an unreasonably high dud-rate, on top of being generally inaccurate and having lower levels of destructive capacity than western shells do - in large part because Russia lacks the ability to produce high-tolerance precision machined parts at an industrial scale as well as being lacking in the energetics department, etc. Even still, Russias claims amount to about 10k shells per day, whereas Ukraines western allies have commited to supplying it with what amounts to 15k per day - which means that Russias industrial output is far from dwarfing the west (and is in fact being dwarfed). Likewise, I think the fact that captured Russian electronics and hardware is filled with western commercial/consumer grade electronics is a strong indicator that Russia lacks domestic advanced manufacturing capabilities to produce its own domestic electronics and microchips.

Also, the victories in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria were hardly "easy" for Russia. Western observers identified and documented all the same weaknesses and deficiencies in those conflicts that we are now seeing in Ukraine. A big impetus for Russias supposed military transformation and modernization over the past decade was in large part because those victories were actually largely *embarassing*. The supposed #2 military power on earth had some of its most advanced military technologies and capabilities humbled or defeated by outdated and obsolete technology that it had itself manufactured 30-40 years prior during each of those conflicts, as well as various other issues stemming from organizational and doctrinal incompetency and outmoded operational concepts (myriad friendly fire incidents, operational failures, etc.).

The Su-57 is to receive new, stealthier engines in the coming time, some have already been equipped with. Let's not forget that it needs time to mature, just like the F35 (I still remember the not so long ago time where it was the most expensive non combat capable fighter on Earth haha).

We've seen plenty of Russian "modernization" and "maturation" to know they haven't figured out how to polish a turd. Despite all the hype over how advanced and capable the "modernized" and "mature" Su-35 was, for example, combat performance in Ukraine has demonstrated it to really be not much more capable than the Su-27. Ditto the Su-34.

And no, no SU-57 has been "equipped with" the Saturn ALF-51, they have a set of prototype engines they are using for testing, development, and integration purposes, but even Russias own overly-optimistic estimates don't place the engine entering active service for another 3-5 years. Even still, callign those engines "stealthier" is technically true, but in practical terms doesn't mean much as the eye-test tells us that they are not true all-aspect stealth engines like those found on the F-22, B-2, or B-21. While the engine is (on paper) probably the most capable engine that the Russians have ever developed, I very much doubt they have suddenly fixed all the metallurgical and precision machining issues that result in low service life and maintenance issues.

I believe the doctrine for the Russian air force is to operate mainly in friendly skies, protected by their strong air defense, but correct me if I'm wrong.

This is correct. They are primarily a defensive air force intended to defend Mother Russias skies from a NATO "aerospace blitzkrieg" (aka massed missile-aviation strike or integrated massed air strike).

That would explain the bad rear stealth ?
But it does seem that the Russian intentionally decided not to make it fully stealth (look at that irst on the front !!!). Was it because of lack of knowhow it a deliberate choice ("we don't need an F22 !") ?
I guess we'll know if one day they produce their vaunted Pak DA stealth bomber (spoiler alert: I don't believe we'll see it soon !).

No, stealth is a defensive technology more than it is an offensive one. The point is to increase the chances of survival in an air engagement, not to penetrate hostile aerospace. The bad side/rear/ventral stealth is because stealth is hard and expensive, and all-aspect stealth is even harder and more expensive. Russia has rarely ever been revolutionary with its aircraft design, more often its been evolutionary and incremental. They don't do "cutting edge" and "gold plated" so much as they do "good enough but still affordable". If they had the means and capability to do all-aspect stealth on a large scale they would, but they can't - which is fine because for their doctrinal purposes this is good enough. Its worth noting that despite what is in theory a defensive doctrine and operational concept, politically Russia *is* as of late an aggressor state bent on conquest. Activities in Georgia, Syria, Ukraine, etc. show that it wants to engage in expeditionary and punitive operations in hostile territories, not unlike the US. For that it would be better served by all-aspect stealth designs, that it isn't producing any is more likely because it can't than because it feels such a design would be unnecessary per its own doctrine.

Yeah, but I wasn't comparing it to the USA, nobody can especially in Air Force, that's kinda their thing. Look at the European countries, supposed to be wealthy and technologically advanced : they have yet to develop their own, let alone produce it ! I mean, c'mon, have you heard about the Eurodrone ? They are on the verge of starting production of their first MALE drone ... in 2024. for how long have the States been using reapers and predators ?^^ I was more wondering in a vacuum and about the think tank. But I agree that the Russian are late for a "superpower" and that their production rate is ridiculous compared to the Chinese for example, that have their own 5 gen fighter (that is even more mysterious)

Europes problem has been a chronic decades long underinvestment into its own defense rather than a technological incapability (coupled with a desire to spread cost amongst international partners with wildly different priorities and divergent capability requirements, etc. which has resulted in a long list of stalled and/or failed projects). A reality that European leaders (and the population as a whole) have only begun to wake up to in the last 2 years or so. That being said, the F-35 *IS* an international project being led by the US, rather than a US project that Europe bought into. Otherwise, on the whole European nations largely opted for the "good enough" gen 4.5 solution of the Eurofighter Typhoon to be supplemented by the F-35 rather than pursuing costly and expensive domestic gen 5 aircraft capabilities, thinking that there were no conceivable threats to them and that everyone would get along (and the belief US would come swoop in to the rescue if anything bad really happened).

That being said, within the past decade various European nations opted to initiate Gen 6 projects (as did the US). 5th Gen seems to have been a short interim branch of technological development, mainly spearheaded by the US and then later piggy-backed on by the international also-rans that are Russia and China (look, they were comparatively very late to put their own designs into operational service, im not convinced the SU-57 (or for that matter the SU-75) will ever see use in any appreciable quantities and the J-20 seems to be more of an operational testbed destined to be supplanted by a future platform and relegated to second-line duty rather than a true front-line aircraft). There are already discussions about retiring the F-22 (the Air Force is basically buying modernized F-15s to partially replace it, and has long term plans to divest the F-22 fleet fully while continuing to operating the F-15, F-16, and F-35 alongside the future 6th gen fighter). The F-35 will no doubt serve in large numbers for decades to come, but depending on who you ask the F-35 and F-15EX are being seen as somewhat interchangeable rungs in the high-low mix ladder (with the F-16 definitely being the bottom rung and the future 6th gen being top rung). Some would say that 5th generation stealth fighters are a technological dead-end and Europe at large was wise not to chase it instead of allowing 4th gen fighters to reach true maturity and then pursuing 6th generation fighters once the requisite technologies to enable them (stealth/low observable technologies, drone swarms/loyal wingmen, AI, next-gen engines, advanced EW and AESA capabilities, directed energy weapon/countermeasure capabilities, next gen turbines/turbofans) were sufficiently mature. The joint British/Japanese/Italian and French/Spanish/German programs are likely to produce quite sophisticated and capable designs if politicking doesn't pull the partnerships apart. Belgium has signed on as an observer to the French/Spanish/German program and indicated an intention to join the program as more-than-an-observer in the near future. Sweden was part of the British/Japanese/Italian program but opted to go its own way and launch an independent program. All these players have some truly sophisticated engineering capabilities and design know-how, the question is whether they can fuse that all together in a way that fills in the gaps between them without falling apart at the seams. European leaders should really consider their respective programs as national priorities and do everything they can to drive cooperation and enable success of those projects, even if it means compromising on the political and economic factors that might make it politically appealing for them to pursue.

 godardc wrote:
I believe that if the war in Ukraine has shown us something, it's not that the industrial capacity of Russia staggered or is lacking, but more that the power became complacent and lazy after some easy victories (Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2015), and let the country rot. Now that they have been hurt badly and woke up, they put the combined industrial might of the USA and Europe to shame just in shell production, for example. When there is a will, there is a way ! So I have no doubts they will build the small hundred of Su-57 planned in time (but it will still not be enough to really matter if they don't order more , I agree). They already announced an increase in production and opened it to others countries.

Comparing a nation that is prosecuting a war and has turned a large portion of its economy to said war with nations in relative peacetime isn't exactly a fair comparison.
The Su-57 is a propaganda piece just like those "next-gen" armoured vehicles the Russians trotted out and internet war "experts" said would conquer Ukraine, and yet they haven't even been deployed because the Russians don't have enough of them.

The Su-57 is to receive new, stealthier engines in the coming time, some have already been equipped with. Let's not forget that it needs time to mature, just like the F35 (I still remember the not so long ago time where it was the most expensive non combat capable fighter on Earth haha).

Sorry what? "It needs time to mature"? The Su-57 has been around since 1999, how much longer does it need to "mature"?
In the time it's taken for the Russians to build 11 usable Su-57s, the F-22 and Eurofighter have had their production completed and the F-35 is present in the USAF, RAF, RAAF, Italian Air Force, JSDF, Israeli Air Force, Royal Netherlands Air Force, Royal Norwegian Air Force, and Republic of Korea Air Force while also seeing updates and refits to the original design.

 Gert wrote:
Sorry what? "It needs time to mature"? The Su-57 has been around since 1999, how much longer does it need to "mature"?
In the time it's taken for the Russians to build 11 usable Su-57s, the F-22 and Eurofighter have had their production completed and the F-35 is present in the USAF, RAF, RAAF, Italian Air Force, JSDF, Israeli Air Force, Royal Netherlands Air Force, Royal Norwegian Air Force, and Republic of Korea Air Force while also seeing updates and refits to the original design.

When did development work start on the Joint Strike Fighter aka F-35? The point is that the design timeline is not a constant, and an infusion of resources, combat experience and updated technology can cause programs that languished to rapidly move ahead.

A key issue is the potential to ramp up production. The West has almost zero "surge" capacity for weapons. We've de-industrialized to the point that years worth of production are gone in weeks. The F-35 has lots of customers, but spare parts for all those countries rely on a single point of failure which is thousands of miles away from their respective homelands.

The other point to consider is that Russian aircraft will be fighting with home field advantage, protected by layer upon layer of integrated air defenses. The Su-57 simply doesn't need to penetrate air defenses like the F-35 or F-22. They can lurk in the backfield and time their strike.

Doctrinally, we're looking at very different needs.

The thing that worries me is that Western production is so sclerotic and the absolute numbers of aircraft are so small, that if you factor in availability rates, the Western numerical advantage is going to be pretty small.

At this point, stealth aircraft are like capital ships - and I think 'dreadnought paralysis' is going to cause leaders to fear putting them in harm's way. It's not like Vietnam where we can burn through F-4s because more on coming down the assembly line.

 Gert wrote:
The Su-57 has been around since 1999, how much longer does it need to "mature"?

Err, not to defend the Russians but the SU-57s first flight was in 2010 and it didn't enter production til 2019. In 1999 all it was was a concept on a piece of paper, saying "its been around" since then is misleading and inaccurate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The F-35 absolutely does not have a "single point of failure". There's over 1500 suppliers for parts, components, and sub assemblies in the F-35 program spread out over 10 countries - the majority (~1400) are in the US (literally across all 50 states) while the remaining ~80 or so are in Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Japan, the UK, Italy, Australia, and Israel (and formerly Turkey). In addition to the domestic FACO/MRO&U (Final Assembly and Check Out/Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul & Upgrade facility) in Ft Worth, there's also a FACO/MRO&U in Italy and another in Japan.

The risk to the F-35 is the "just in time" supply chain model that attempts to use a logistics information database to predict parts needs and produce them and deliver them right as they are needed rather than having them at the ready on the shelf, not the risk of someone blowing up a single plant and knocking out sustainment of the entire world's F-35 fleet.

 Haighus wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
If there's one thing the current war has shown us, it's not to trust any analysis of Russian combat capabilities. The Su-57 is likely an excellent machine, as is a lot of the hardware in the Russian arsenal. The problems generally aren't with the designs themselves. It's with training, military doctrine, morale and corruption within both the military and the contractors themselves. One reason the Russians have failed to achieve air superiority in Ukraine is down to a simple lack of flight time for their pilots, as well as some fundamental issues with their training and general approach to aerial warfare. Put those same pilots in a much superior aircraft and you likely won't get much better results.

A more interesting analysis might be to investigate the likelihood of Russia being able to produce these things in significant numbers any time soon. The estimated entire inventory currently fits inside a moderately sized hangar.

I would argue that Russia probably does have air superiority, but they certainly don't have air supremacy. However, I think that focusing on Russian deficiencies discounts Ukrainian efforts in force dispersion and aerial denial. The airspace over Ukraine is highly challenging for both sides, partly because both militaries have roots in Soviet aerial denial doctrine with legacy equipment to match.

Broadly speaking, Ukraine has adopted an approach similar to the RAF during the Battle of Britain, except with AA assets moreso than fighters. It is very difficult to wipe such a dispersed force even with well-trained pilots, unless you enjoy a huge technological advantage. Russia does not have that. It is notable that a lot of fixed Ukrainian aerial defense installations were comprehensively destroyed in the opening days of the war, which accounts for the massive air advantage Russia enjoyed intially. Mobile defences were effectively dispersed and mostly survived.

Russia was also completely unfocused during their initial attacks. They went after a bit of everything when they should have focused on a few specific target types. They did a little bit against the air defenses, a little bit against ground troops, a little bit against bases, a little bit against civilians, a little bit against strategic targets, etc...

Which really just shows how noobish they really are when it comes to modern warfare. They have tools and toys, but lack the concept of how to use them and what targets are actually important.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
If there's one thing the current war has shown us, it's not to trust any analysis of Russian combat capabilities. The Su-57 is likely an excellent machine, as is a lot of the hardware in the Russian arsenal. The problems generally aren't with the designs themselves. It's with training, military doctrine, morale and corruption within both the military and the contractors themselves. One reason the Russians have failed to achieve air superiority in Ukraine is down to a simple lack of flight time for their pilots, as well as some fundamental issues with their training and general approach to aerial warfare. Put those same pilots in a much superior aircraft and you likely won't get much better results.

A more interesting analysis might be to investigate the likelihood of Russia being able to produce these things in significant numbers any time soon. The estimated entire inventory currently fits inside a moderately sized hangar.

I would argue that Russia probably does have air superiority, but they certainly don't have air supremacy. However, I think that focusing on Russian deficiencies discounts Ukrainian efforts in force dispersion and aerial denial. The airspace over Ukraine is highly challenging for both sides, partly because both militaries have roots in Soviet aerial denial doctrine with legacy equipment to match.

Broadly speaking, Ukraine has adopted an approach similar to the RAF during the Battle of Britain, except with AA assets moreso than fighters. It is very difficult to wipe such a dispersed force even with well-trained pilots, unless you enjoy a huge technological advantage. Russia does not have that. It is notable that a lot of fixed Ukrainian aerial defense installations were comprehensively destroyed in the opening days of the war, which accounts for the massive air advantage Russia enjoyed intially. Mobile defences were effectively dispersed and mostly survived.

Russia was also completely unfocused during their initial attacks. They went after a bit of everything when they should have focused on a few specific target types. They did a little bit against the air defenses, a little bit against ground troops, a little bit against bases, a little bit against civilians, a little bit against strategic targets, etc...

Which really just shows how noobish they really are when it comes to modern warfare. They have tools and toys, but lack the concept of how to use them and what targets are actually important.

I don't agree in regards to the Russian Airforce at the beginning of the conflict- they nearly achieved their aims and enjoyed significant air superiority for a period as a result. They were leagues more competent than most of the ground operations at this time. I think a bigger issue is that they were supporting a poorly-conceived ground offensive and there is only so much you can polish a turd with the crutch of air power.

Ukraine bounced back, leading to the current state of aerial denial being the default for both sides, but they took huge casualties in the opening phase.

Military Aviation History has a very measured video on this:
https://youtu.be/carENYJE7bg?si=8G_5vwk-f0e8UnEZ

As someone who has been monitoring events in Ukraine very closely for many many years, even before it was really a conflict (see also my legendary thread on dakka covering Euromaidan before western media even picked up on it), and who has a degree in Joint Military Studies with a focus on Airpower, I have a lot of disagreement with that take.

The VKS air operation was pretty much a joke from the get-go, their strikes didn't come anywhere near destroying 75% of air defense sites as the video claims. To put things into a bit of context - the US launched more missile strikes and aviation sorties within the first 4 hours of the 2003 invasion of Iraq than Russia did in the first 3 days of their attempted invasion of Ukraine - Ukraine is about 40% larger a country in area and had a much more developed and better integrated air defense, command, control, and communications network than Iraq did in 2003 (though Desert Storm era Iraq was probably had significantly more air defense assets than Ukraine did), which means that Russia really needed to launch a lot more strikes than the US did in order to achieve similar results. Through the first 30 days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq the US alone (not including allies) averaged over 1,200 sorties per day, over which about 620/day were strike sorties. Just the USAF alone (excluding Army/Navy/Marine Corps) was responsible for over 300 strike sorties/day on average (over 800/day if you factor in C2ISR, mobility/airlift/refueling, SAR, etc.). The VKS generating only 150 sorties/day into Ukraine (literally on its doorstep vs half a world away for the US attempting to invade Iraq) is either a demonstration of their lack of capacity to conduct a truly effective and modern air war or a reflection of an abject failure to plan sufficiently to fight one.

Ukraines dispersal of its air assets and ground-based air defenses was more complete and wider-spread than the video seems to realize, and Russias targeting less effective than he credits them with. The commercial satellite imagery that came out within the first few days of the invasion demonstrated that the majority of military installations that Russia struck in the opening salvos had been basically emptied out and abandoned before the first missiles flew, leaving Russia with little to show for its efforts outside of cratered runways and damaged facades of empty buildings. Notably, quite a few key fixed communication nodes and air defense sites were left seemingly entirely untargeted through the first few weeks of the conflict (hell, there were a few that had fighters and other equipment left on the aprons because they were down for maintenance and couldn't be flown away, theres stories and video of the Ukrainians going back days or even weeks later and hitching up some of these airframes to trucks and driving them out, presumably so they could use them for parts, etc.), and a few that were targeted demonstrated very early on that Russias precision strike capabilities weren't very precise (i.e. - there were indicators that their attempted strikes missed their targets wildly - I recall one set of satellite photos of an airbase - there were indicators of a single impact on the runway, and a half-dozen more impacts that landed in the fields next to the runway, apron, and control tower. Notably there were a number of spare airframes in a "boneyard" type setup off the side of the apron, what appeared to be an active radar site at one end of the runway, and a fuel/ammo dump near a cluster of hangars - all completely untouched and seeminlgy untargeted).

Notably, there is nothing that truly indicates that Russia prioritized targeting of air defense sites over other target categories. Its targeting was largely unfocused and scattered across a wide range of target types. The video would have you believe that Russia conducted an air war like the US would, and thats frankly not even remotely true. As I've noted before, Russia does not and has never had a true SEAD/DEAD doctrine, nor is it considered a mission-set within Russian operational planning. The VKS treats SEAD/DEAD as a capability, i.e. they strap a couple of ARMs and a jammer pod onto an airframe and say "put some iron bombs on these tanks over here, if you happen to come across any radar or missile sites along the way, see what you can do about them, good luck, have fun". If Russia was successfully targeting and destroying Ukrainian radar and missile sites early on it was largely incidental to other missions.

If the VKS had any degree of air superiority it was only ever highly localized within the area of umbrella coverage of Russias ground based air-defenses along the Russian and Belarussian borders, and the Ukrainian air force was otherwise shown to be operating with relative impunity across large sections of the country. The handful of notable Russian friendly fire incidents and self-shootdowns that occurred over the opening few days and weeks of the war aptly demonstrate the incompetence and failures of both the VKS and the wider Russian military operations planning as a whole.

Well, the video states 75% of fixed assets were destroyed, but only around 10% of mobile assets and the Ukrainian air force was not particularly badly affected. Which does match with your overall point better than 75% of all air defense assets.

 Haighus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
If there's one thing the current war has shown us, it's not to trust any analysis of Russian combat capabilities. The Su-57 is likely an excellent machine, as is a lot of the hardware in the Russian arsenal. The problems generally aren't with the designs themselves. It's with training, military doctrine, morale and corruption within both the military and the contractors themselves. One reason the Russians have failed to achieve air superiority in Ukraine is down to a simple lack of flight time for their pilots, as well as some fundamental issues with their training and general approach to aerial warfare. Put those same pilots in a much superior aircraft and you likely won't get much better results.

A more interesting analysis might be to investigate the likelihood of Russia being able to produce these things in significant numbers any time soon. The estimated entire inventory currently fits inside a moderately sized hangar.

I would argue that Russia probably does have air superiority, but they certainly don't have air supremacy. However, I think that focusing on Russian deficiencies discounts Ukrainian efforts in force dispersion and aerial denial. The airspace over Ukraine is highly challenging for both sides, partly because both militaries have roots in Soviet aerial denial doctrine with legacy equipment to match.

Broadly speaking, Ukraine has adopted an approach similar to the RAF during the Battle of Britain, except with AA assets moreso than fighters. It is very difficult to wipe such a dispersed force even with well-trained pilots, unless you enjoy a huge technological advantage. Russia does not have that. It is notable that a lot of fixed Ukrainian aerial defense installations were comprehensively destroyed in the opening days of the war, which accounts for the massive air advantage Russia enjoyed intially. Mobile defences were effectively dispersed and mostly survived.

Russia was also completely unfocused during their initial attacks. They went after a bit of everything when they should have focused on a few specific target types. They did a little bit against the air defenses, a little bit against ground troops, a little bit against bases, a little bit against civilians, a little bit against strategic targets, etc...

Which really just shows how noobish they really are when it comes to modern warfare. They have tools and toys, but lack the concept of how to use them and what targets are actually important.

I don't agree in regards to the Russian Airforce at the beginning of the conflict- they nearly achieved their aims and enjoyed significant air superiority for a period as a result. They were leagues more competent than most of the ground operations at this time. I think a bigger issue is that they were supporting a poorly-conceived ground offensive and there is only so much you can polish a turd with the crutch of air power.

Ukraine bounced back, leading to the current state of aerial denial being the default for both sides, but they took huge casualties in the opening phase.

Military Aviation History has a very measured video on this:
https://youtu.be/carENYJE7bg?si=8G_5vwk-f0e8UnEZ

They did achieve their goals. Their goals were bad.

Instead of actually making an effort to silence Ukraine's airforce and air defenses, they spread out their targeting priority and didn't actually neutralize anything in its entirety which would actually be useful. They even allowed the Ukranian airforce to accomplish a lot against Russian ground targets. Yes the Russian ground forces are also to blame because they had their air defenses turned off, but the Russian airforce should have been capable of shutting down the Ukrainian forces by themselves.

This highlights the Russian airforces problems aren't in terms of carrying out missions, but in actually deciding what missions are important and how they support the larger offensive.

But instead they fell into the trap of thinking everything would be over quickly with a show of force, assuming that they could just cow Ukraine into surrendering.

In theory, if the Russian airforce had been competent and wiped out Ukranian air assets and defenses then they could have begun supporting their ground forces from relative safety. And even if their ground forces had still been totally incompetent they could have still made progress with air support.

The reason the Russian airforce is so gimped is because the Ukrainian long range air defense systems are intact, which forces the planes to fly low and fast. Which puts them in danger from manpads. Had the Russians put an effort in, and were just better at real time information gathering, they could have taken out more Ukrainian defenses early on. Enough to allow their airforce to have supremacy. but they didn't because they are horribly incompetent. And destroying a lot of fixed assets isn't exactly high praise when the dangerous stuff is whats mobile.

chaos0xomega wrote:
The F-35 absolutely does not have a "single point of failure". There's over 1500 suppliers for parts, components, and sub assemblies in the F-35 program spread out over 10 countries - the majority (~1400) are in the US (literally across all 50 states) while the remaining ~80 or so are in Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Japan, the UK, Italy, Australia, and Israel (and formerly Turkey). In addition to the domestic FACO/MRO&U (Final Assembly and Check Out/Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul & Upgrade facility) in Ft Worth, there's also a FACO/MRO&U in Italy and another in Japan.

The risk to the F-35 is the "just in time" supply chain model that attempts to use a logistics information database to predict parts needs and produce them and deliver them right as they are needed rather than having them at the ready on the shelf, not the risk of someone blowing up a single plant and knocking out sustainment of the entire world's F-35 fleet.

It depends on how you define a "point." As you note, the F-35 has a web of logistics, but this was optimized to distribute defense contracts (to gain purchasing partners), not robust the supply chain.

If the US goes into a budget shutdown (which seems to happen every other year), can the partners source parts among themselves without major dislocations?

 godardc wrote:
in addition to formidable advantages like its agility and combat persistency.

snipping down to that bit. . . . I wonder how it would stack up with the likes of the Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon (have to spell it out, lest someone think I'm talking about the ww2 Typhoon, lol), and modern US fighters.

I know between the europeans and americans, there are 2 different thoughts to "stealth" fighters, whether they are active or passive stealth. From the few articles/post training write-ups that have been published that I've seen, it seems that between the 3/4 "mainline" fighter offerings the allies/NATO uses (again, Rafale, Typhoon, and F-22/35) which one has the advantage depends mostly on the sortie being trained. Like it's a bit rock-paper-scissors between them and generally of the group, the advantage lies with whoever was designated the "offensive" element in the exercise flight.

I would add a 3rd option to stealth types. Having a non-stealth option as your mainline fighter to draw attention away from the stealthy fighters which act in more precision roles.

Stealth is not all or nothing, its a gradient and it just means how visible you are relative to the background. If all your aircraft are stealthy, enemy radar operators will know to look for your very faint blips. IMO stealth aircraft would be more effective if you are also running simultaneous raids with very non-stealthy aircraft as distractions for radar operators. You might notice a bunch of faint blips, but will you notice a faint blip if there are also several large blips at the same time?

This is kinda how stealth aircraft are still occasionally shot down. By radar operators being aware of their presence, knowing what to look for and where, and getting a little lucky sometimes. But I would wager they'd be far less lucky if there were also some very visible distractions flying around.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I would add a 3rd option to stealth types. Having a non-stealth option as your mainline fighter to draw attention away from the stealthy fighters which act in more precision roles.

Stealth is not all or nothing, its a gradient and it just means how visible you are relative to the background. If all your aircraft are stealthy, enemy radar operators will know to look for your very faint blips. IMO stealth aircraft would be more effective if you are also running simultaneous raids with very non-stealthy aircraft as distractions for radar operators. You might notice a bunch of faint blips, but will you notice a faint blip if there are also several large blips at the same time?

This is kinda how stealth aircraft are still occasionally shot down. By radar operators being aware of their presence, knowing what to look for and where, and getting a little lucky sometimes. But I would wager they'd be far less lucky if there were also some very visible distractions flying around.

Well yeah, which is why I mentioned the two schools of thought. You can see the US train of thought where they go with "passive" stealth. Using the shape/material coating as the biggest factor in radar signatures and stealthiness. The Rafale and Typhoon, from what I've read (and moreso the Rafale) use "active" stealth in that their onboard computers use electronic magic to intercept and essentially "jam" enemy radar. They still have some stealthy materials, but they don't rely on the shapes to screw with radar the way the US does.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I would add a 3rd option to stealth types. Having a non-stealth option as your mainline fighter to draw attention away from the stealthy fighters which act in more precision roles.

Stealth is not all or nothing, its a gradient and it just means how visible you are relative to the background. If all your aircraft are stealthy, enemy radar operators will know to look for your very faint blips. IMO stealth aircraft would be more effective if you are also running simultaneous raids with very non-stealthy aircraft as distractions for radar operators. You might notice a bunch of faint blips, but will you notice a faint blip if there are also several large blips at the same time?

This is kinda how stealth aircraft are still occasionally shot down. By radar operators being aware of their presence, knowing what to look for and where, and getting a little lucky sometimes. But I would wager they'd be far less lucky if there were also some very visible distractions flying around.

Well yeah, which is why I mentioned the two schools of thought. You can see the US train of thought where they go with "passive" stealth. Using the shape/material coating as the biggest factor in radar signatures and stealthiness. The Rafale and Typhoon, from what I've read (and moreso the Rafale) use "active" stealth in that their onboard computers use electronic magic to intercept and essentially "jam" enemy radar. They still have some stealthy materials, but they don't rely on the shapes to screw with radar the way the US does.

Sort of. They do still have some fairly significant RCS reduction measures (F-18 E/F is also in this category BTW), which means they can make better use of the disruption from EW, ground clutter, etc. along the lines of what Grey Templar was saying (if you’re a fainter blip it’s easier to get lost in the noise). Felon (and probably the new Chinese fighters) sit somewhere between the two; more stealthy than the 4.5s, but not as much as the US 5th gen.

Thing is, with all of these, it’s as much about how you fly the aircraft as the capabilities itself. Have your pilots had the classroom time to understand how to use ground clutter and then the flight time to practice it? Have your squadron commanders had time to work out their EW and distraction strategy and coordinate with the other units that will be supplying that (which may be Army ground units and in a completely different chain of command)? Has everyone had time to study the intelligence reports of what the enemy capabilities, doctrine and disposition are?

This is where the Russians fell over in Feb 22 (I think Chris mentions this in his video), the secrecy / uncertainty of the Russian high command over what was going to happen meant that the VKS got very little notice that they were going on live operations, possibly as little as a couple of days. Even for a well trained and practiced Western air force that would be an extreme challenge and given the aforementioned lack of flight hours, etc. in the VKS they just threw together what they could. I think that’s why it was so unfocused. I think the Kremlin was probably well aware that would happen, but they were counting on the Ukrainians just folding after a couple of days, so it didn’t matter. Just show up, lob a few munitions and look impressive, jobs a good ‘un.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I would add a 3rd option to stealth types. Having a non-stealth option as your mainline fighter to draw attention away from the stealthy fighters which act in more precision roles.
Stealth is not all or nothing, its a gradient and it just means how visible you are relative to the background. If all your aircraft are stealthy, enemy radar operators will know to look for your very faint blips. IMO stealth aircraft would be more effective if you are also running simultaneous raids with very non-stealthy aircraft as distractions for radar operators. You might notice a bunch of faint blips, but will you notice a faint blip if there are also several large blips at the same time?
This is kinda how stealth aircraft are still occasionally shot down. By radar operators being aware of their presence, knowing what to look for and where, and getting a little lucky sometimes. But I would wager they'd be far less lucky if there were also some very visible distractions flying around.

Well yeah, which is why I mentioned the two schools of thought. You can see the US train of thought where they go with "passive" stealth. Using the shape/material coating as the biggest factor in radar signatures and stealthiness. The Rafale and Typhoon, from what I've read (and moreso the Rafale) use "active" stealth in that their onboard computers use electronic magic to intercept and essentially "jam" enemy radar. They still have some stealthy materials, but they don't rely on the shapes to screw with radar the way the US does.

The reality of stealth aircraft is that most are detectable and trackable from quite some distance away (maybe a couple dozen miles max) by long range early-warning radar systems, even by civilian ATC radar sets (comparatively a non-stealth/low observable fighter is detectable from several dozen to a couple hundred miles away). Its just that the narrow-band fire control radars needed to get a target lock on them in order to paint a target for a radar-guided missile can't get a fix on typical stealth fighters until they are basically right overhead or next to the emitter, although there are various techniques that require really good training and coordination that can be used to enhance that capability (usually via triangulation across multiple radar sets over a wide area). This is a big part of why repeat strike missions conducted by stealth aircraft will never fly a consistent route (and what routes they do fly are often dictated by gaps in opponents radar coverage in order to minimize risk of early detection).

For this reason, and contrary to what you believe, the US has not gone "all in" on passive stealth. Just about all known combat deployments of American stealth fighters have had them escorted by "active stealth" assets (i.e. Electronic Warfare assets). The F-35 is supposed to have some degree of self-protection in this field as its radar doubles as a very powerful and capable jamming system as well, but otherwise EA-18G Growlers have become a key component of American penetration strike ops. In fact, the reason that the Serbs were able to shoot down the F-117 in 1999 was because on that day Nighthawks electronic escort was grounded due to bad weather, they chose to sortie without them anyway because they underestimated the risk. The rest is history.

I think the Kremlin was probably well aware that would happen, but they were counting on the Ukrainians just folding after a couple of days, so it didn’t matter. Just show up, lob a few munitions and look impressive, jobs a good ‘un.

Certainly part of it I think. I took off work and stayed up the first couple nights of the invasion monitoring every OSINT source and news channel I could. My takeaway (and that of most of the others in the groups I was in) within a few hours was basically "thats it?" For a while some of us were convinced the Russians had some next-level EWAR capabilities that they had used to silence much of the reporting but it became obvious pretty quickly that this wasnt the case. At some point someone commented that it was like the Russians watched a recording of some of the news reporting of the "shock and awe" campaign from the Iraq invasion and tried to imitate that for the purposes of spectacle without understanding what the goal was or having the capacity and capability to properly plan and execute it, and I have to say that it seems that take has born out as being pretty accurate to reality.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

The other point to consider is that Russian aircraft will be fighting with home field advantage, protected by layer upon layer of integrated air defenses. The Su-57 simply doesn't need to penetrate air defenses like the F-35 or F-22. They can lurk in the backfield and time their strike.
.

Oh? Ukraine is homefield? Poland is homefield?

If su57 sees combat it will not be over russian territory so what home field advantage they have over non-russian territory?

And seeing how few they have by the time it's in numbers needed us is flying 6th gen planes(about to start 1st test flights iirc).